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Impact of Globalization on Monetary Policy

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Impact of Globalization on Monetary Policy Impact of Globalization on Monetary Policy Kenneth S. Rogoff This paper aims to discuss a few core issues in the recent monetary policy and globalization debate.1 Are global factors becoming impor- tant drivers of domestic inflation—or disinflation? To what extent should terms of trade shocks play a larger role in central bank rules for deciding when and for how long to allow inflation to drift above or below target? Even if central banks are reluctant to react to perceived misalignments in asset price levels, how concerned should they be about the fact that thus far, equity, housing, and trade-weighted exchange rates have not yet demonstrated the enduring decline in volatility that output and inflation have experienced? I will argue that continuing asset price volatility is at least in part because of heightened asset price sensitivity to risk changes as risk levels fall, and the increas- ing ability of financial markets to diversify risk. Therefore, in the context of a long and successful campaign to reduce output and infla- tion volatility, it would be a mistake for central banks to obsess as much about asset price volatility as asset markets obsess about central bank volatility. The second section of the paper begins by exploring whether the popular view that “China exports deflation” has any real content, and other issues related to the effect of the global productivity boom on inflation. At some level, this view confuses terms of trade gains with deflation. Indeed, over the medium term, it would be more accurate to say that China is exporting inflation to the prices of other goods in the economy. Nevertheless, there is an important truth to the argument 265 266 Kenneth S. Rogoff also, in that central banks may reasonably choose to allow inflation to drift below target in response to favorable terms of trade shifts, just as they may choose to allow inflation to drift temporarily above target in response to adverse oil price shocks. More speculatively, some have argued that favorable trend terms of trade changes, combined with greater competitiveness and flexibility, allow central banks to target slightly lower trend inflation rates than they might otherwise. The second section also touches on the intriguing notion that central banks pay more attention to global excess capacity in predicting domes- tic inflation. Overall, I conclude that whereas global factors certainly help shape monetary decisions, domestic monetary authorities still retain extremely strong control over medium- and long-term inflation trends, even in very open economies. This is true despite the fact that, through both goods and asset price arbitrage, globalization is weaken- ing the grip of individual central banks over the trajectory of domestic real interest rates, except at relatively short horizons. The third section revisits the stunning decline in output and inflation volatility that most countries have experienced in recent years, and contrasts this with the continuing volatility in many asset markets, not least including equity prices, housing, and exchange rates. Economists have come to term the output volatility decline “The Great Modera- tion,” which in principle has been a great triumph for central banks though there remains a great deal of debate about how to apportion credit.2 Might the ever-expanding depth and liquidity of global asset markets, which are contributing to the general level of asset price infla- tion, also be exacerbating their volatility, partially offsetting the reduction that would otherwise come with more stable real economic activity? Why has exchange rate volatility been so slow to decline when, in principle, inflation and output volatility ought to be major drivers? There are many possible explanations for continuing asset price volatility. First, equities (should) reflect long horizon returns, and long- run risk does not necessarily diminish in proportion to reductions in short-run volatility. Second, as financial markets deepen, and as riskier parts of the global economy become securitized, aggregate measures of asset price volatility can rise even though the value of the global economy’s overall capital stock (including both securitized and nonse- curitized components) is not necessarily itself becoming more volatile. Deeper markets, of course, also allow greater diversification of risk, Impact of Globalization on Monetary Policy 267 lowering its price. Third, investors may still be engaged in a learning process on how to calibrate the effects of today’s considerably lower output volatility on asset prices, in which case some significant portion of current volatility may eventually pass. Fourth, I argue that to the extent higher asset prices are fueled by low-risk premia, and, therefore, low-risk adjusted interest rates, asset prices may become proportion- ately more sensitive to changes in perceived levels of risk. (This is in analogy to the fact that very long-lived assets become more sensitive to changes in the levels of interests rates as interest rates fall, which indeed also may be a factor in volatility.) In this case, the continuing volatility of many asset prices, not to mention their continuing sensitivity to monetary pronouncements, may reflect their inflated levels rather than, say, major failures in central bank communications policy. For completeness, in the final section before the conclusions, I briefly survey the burgeoning academic literature on whether, as economies become more open, the case becomes more compelling for including exchange rates or terms of trade shocks into inflation targeting rules. Whereas this relatively narrow issue is not our main focus, it, neverthe- less, concentrates a number of practical questions concerning how central banks might deal with increasing openness. In principle, exchange rates are naturally born schizophrenics that are both a relative goods price (for given price levels, the exchange rate is the relative price of two countries’ Consumer Price Index, CPI, baskets) and an asset price (the relative price of two countries’ currencies). Empirically, however, as we see again in the third section, exchange rates tend to behave much more like asset prices than goods prices. For countries with well-developed financial markets, the thin information content of exchange rates makes them of limited use in a monetary policy rule, although, of course, there can still be important information when movements are extreme and other variables to support the general direction of the signal exchange rates appear to be sending.3 A more open question is whether terms of trade shocks (for example, oil price shocks or an unexpectedly strong and sustained wave of low- cost manufactures) should play a larger role in monetary rules as economies become more open, despite the fact they are harder to measure. Although researchers have come up with special cases where central banks should not allow even large terms of trade shocks to cause deviations from a narrowly construed inflation targeting rule, these cases seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule. 268 Kenneth S. Rogoff For more generalized “flexible inflation targeting rules” that include inflation as only one argument, then any role for terms of trade shocks depends on whether its effects are already embodied in other variables such as output. The final section of the paper argues that the greatest challenge ahead for central banks is to make sure that their institutional mecha- nisms for preserving low-trend inflation are robust to possible setbacks in the future course of globalization. Whereas central banks should take care to avoid unnecessarily exacerbating asset price volatility (and, thereby, hindering financial deepening), continuing asset price volatil- ity after The Great Moderation can be explained by a number of other factors. Asset price volatility, including exchange rate volatility, should not distract central banks from their core mission of inflation and output stabilization. Globalization and low inflation A great deal already has been written about the broad implications of globalization on inflation, interest rates, and monetary policy. This includes both the surge of recent interest in policy discussions4 and, of course, academic analyses dating back at least to David Hume’s writings in the 18th century.5 In this section, I attempt to address a few issues that have been of particular concern in the recent policy debate, beginning with the increasingly prominent view that the forces of globalization have become the central drivers in domestic inflation trends. Is China exporting deflation—or inflation? Perhaps the idea that has gained the most traction is the “China is exporting deflation” theory. At one level, this paradigm is hopelessly naïve. It is certainly true that as China’s low-wage workers integrate into the global economy after decades of isolation (not to mention India, the former Soviet Bloc states, etc.), they place relentless down- ward pressures on wages and prices elsewhere. But hypercompetitive Chinese exports only affect relative prices. As long as the central bank targets inflation in the overall price level, which it can over sufficiently long horizons, cheap goods from China simply imply that other goods must become more expensive. From this perspec- tive, one might actually say that China is exporting inflation to the other sectors of the global economy. Impact of Globalization on Monetary Policy 269 However, on another level, the “China is exporting deflation” does have an important element of truth. The breathtaking speed and pace of China’s integration into the global economy during the past 20 years has been a continuing source of wonder, even for central bank oracles. Setting aside a number of nuances we will return to in the fourth section of the paper, optimal monetary policy in the face of favorable terms of trade shock will typically involve allowing inflation to temporarily drift below target. Thus, the continuing upside surprises in developing country growth during the past decade have translated into lower-than-expected inflation.
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